Intel GMA 950

[1magus]

I have been trying to purchase a netbook and recently I came across a website for GMA booster, that takes the GMA 950 and clocks it back to 400MHz.
Now I was wondering should I get a netbook with this particular GPU in it? Or should I get one with a GMA 3150, I mean is the 3150 the same power as a GMA 950 that is overclocked?

It is a bit confusing because there are way too many choices for netbooks out there and I'm trying to find one that can run Windows games from around 2003 or below or 3D emulators like Nintendo 64.
Any extra help would be appreciated

 

[BRiT]

Are there any out there with an AMD GPU 4x00-5x00 series or Nvidia GPU ION / 9x00 series? I think that would be your best bet.

 

[1magus]

Well the acer aspire one 532g was supposed to launch this month and it would of contained a second generation ION GPU and only a 10.2" display making it as small as the other netbooks but there is no info on it, and no website for it

 

[1magus]

Should I wait for future releases of netbooks? Is there anybody here who has been paying attention to the world of netbooks lol?

 

[swaaye]

Like I said in your other thread, the Intel IGPs are not worth your time if you want to play games newer than about 2001. They can handle games of that age rather well.

Netbooks are built to be cheap and small. That combination basically means you aren't going to find fancy graphics. Also, if they did have a decent GPU, they would get quite hot. Small notebooks don't dissipate heat well.

In addition to my EeePC 900, I have a HP Pavilion DV2z. That is a 12" subnotebook with a 1280x800 LCD, discrete Radeon 3410 GPU, and a dual core Turion 1.6 GHz. It blows away the Atom notebooks in every way. You can find them used for a decent price usually. It's still not going to play modern games though. Oblivion is essentially playable, but that's about what its limit is.

Figure out what you want to play and how big of a notebook you want and go from there.

 

[1magus]

I want to play EtherLords + II, Fallout 1 + 2, Dues Ex, Console emulators from NES to N64 and stuff in between but I want the device to do those things to be 10.2" screen. I dunno I mean if you get a 12" you might as well just get a full gaming laptop. I want mine to be small.

 

[1magus]

Also SD movies, music, flash on web I heard Adobe Flash 10.1 works better on Atom now? I mean I wanted something small and cheap that can run games from 2001 and below I guess.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I have read news on netbooks in a while, But if I remember correctly, when ION was launched for netbooks and reviews for it came out. It was noted that performance in games with it wasn't hugely better than the integrated solution due almost entirely to the low power of the CPU.

I wouldn't expect any miracles from ION 2 on that front unless processing power for ATOM CPU's has also gone up quite a bit.

And as Swaaye has said, any PC game 2001-2 and older should be just fine. Especially at the low resolution available on netbooks. And even if it does struggle, there's always the option to turn down graphics quality in game.

Regards,
SB

 

[DavidC]

Also SD movies, music, flash on web I heard Adobe Flash 10.1 works better on Atom now? I mean I wanted something small and cheap that can run games from 2001 and below I guess.

You'll be fine as long as you don't run HD. The graphics only accerate MPEG for HD quality unless you got the Z5xx Atoms which can then use GPU to do 720p, maybe.

The GMA Booster will help but not a whole lot. The GMA 900/950 is not bound by pixel processing power, rather the vertex shader and T&L.

The GMA3150 is basicall GMA 950 on a better process technology for lower power and slight improvement in the video playback. Its the same GPU otherwise.